Henry Edward Malloy was born in Attica, Indiana, on September 19, 1874. He grew up in Emporia, Kansas, and attended Emporia High School and Emporia State University before graduating from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. After studying music in Berlin, Germany, he taught schools in Emporia, served as principal in Hutchinson, Kansas, and became a faculty member in the Music Department at Bethany College in 1902, where he also directed the orchestra. He began teaching chorus at the Western Branch of the Kansas Normal School in 1913. In 1914, he became the head of the Music Department at the Fort Hays Kansas State Normal School (later the Kansas State Teachers College of Hays and Fort Hays Kansas State College). He held this position until his death in 1937.

Clara Louise Panzram was born in Chase County, Kansas, on August 14, 1893. She graduated from Bethany Conservatory in Lindsborg, Kansas, and was certified in violin in 1903 and in voice in 1904. She married Henry Edward Malloy at an unknown date prior to 1914. In 1914, she moved to Hays, Kansas, with her husband. She tutored Fort Hays students in violin and vocal music.

The Music Department grew rapidly under Henry's direction. Soon after his appointment, the department added six new instructors. During the 1910s and 1920s, Clara and Henry toured Western Kansas to recruit students to study music at Fort Hays. They started several music programs at Fort Hays, including the Spring Music Festival, which brought internationally acclaimed performers to Hays and began the tradition of presenting annual oratorios. In 1919, Henry Malloy directed a chorus of 700 performers to sing Handel's "Messiah" at the first Spring Music Festival. By 1922, the festival hosted performers including Madame Schumann-Heink, Rosa Ponselle, Ernest Davis, the New York Philharmonic, and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

In 1928, Henry Malloy brought the first metropolitan opera to Hays. He also invited hundreds of boys and girls to participate in music contests on campus. His efforts to bring music to Western Kansas helped increase the number of high school bands in Western Kansas from 38 bands in 1913 to 180 by the end of his tenure at Fort Hays. He experienced a stroke at his last concert, in which Clara was principal violinist. Henry Malloy died in a hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on October 14, 1937, at age 63. In 1967, Malloy Hall was named in his honor.

Clara remained involved with the Music Department after Henry's death. She presented the Henry Edward Malloy Award to an outstanding senior musician each year and continued to attend all events sponsored by the Music Department for as long as her health permitted. She taught violin for 54 years and was a member of the Hays Civic Symphony for 40 years. Clara Louise Malloy died in April 1974 at the age of 91.